Chapter III (2)

One night in the rains word came from a contractor over the water that a new canal-dam of mine showed signs of giving, and, anxious to be on the spot, I set off at once to catch the midnight ferryboat. I shall not soon forget that ride through the _shesham_ aisle. The floods were out, and for the best part of the way a level sheet of water gleaming in the moonlight lay close up to the embankment of the avenue, which seemed more than ever like a dim colonnade leading to an unseen Holy of Holies. Not a breath of wind, not a sound save the rustle of birds in the branches overhead, and suddenly, causelessly, a snatch of song hushed in its first notes, as if the singer found it too light for sleep, too dark for song. The beat of my horse's feet seemed to keep time with the stars twinkling through the leaves.

I was met at the road's end by the unwelcome news that at least two hours must elapse ere the _Pioneer_ could be got off a newly-invented mudbank which the river had maliciously, placed in a totally unexpected place. Still more unwelcome was the discovery that, in my hurry, I had left my tobacco-pouch behind me. Nothing could be done save to send my groom back with the pony and instructions for immediate return with the forgotten luxury. After which I strolled over towards my friend the _fakeer_, who sat ghostlike in the moonlight with his bowl full to the brim in front of him. "That snorting devil behaves worse every day," he said fervently; "but if the Shelter of the Poor will tarry a twinkling I will sweep him a spot suitable for his exalted presence."

Blind as he was, his dexterous broom had traced another circle of cleanliness in a trice, a new reed-mat, no bigger than a handkerchief, was placed in the centre, and I was being invited to ornament just such another penwiper as the _fakeer_ occupied himself. "Mercy," he continued, as I took my seat, shifting the mat so as to be able to lean my back against the tree, "blesses both him who gives, and those who take," (even Shakespeare, it will be observed, yields at times to platitude). "For see," he added solemnly, producing something from a hollow in the root, "the Presence's own tobacco returns to the Presence's pipe."

Sure enough it was genuine Golden Cloud, and the relief overpowered me. There I was after a space, half-lying, half-sitting in the clean warm sand, my hands clasped at the back of my head as I looked up into the shimmering light and shade of the leaves.

"Upon my soul I envy you, _fakeer-ji_. We who go to bed at set times and seasons don't know the world we live in."

"Religion is its own reward," remarked the graven image beside me, for he had gone back to his penwiper by this time. But I was talking more to myself than to him, in the half-drowsy excitement of physical pleasure, so I went on unheeding.

"Was there ever such a night since the one Jessica looked upon! and what a scent there is in the air,--orange blossoms or something!"

"It is a tree farther up the water-cut, _Huzoor_, a hill tree. The river may have brought the seed; it happens so sometimes. Or the birds may have brought it from the city. There was a tree of the kind in a garden there. A big tree with large white flowers; so large that you can hear them fall."

The graven image sat so still with its face to the river, that it seemed to me as if the voice I heard could not belong to it. A dreamy sense of unreality added to my drowsy enjoyment of the surroundings.

"Magnolia," I murmured sleepily; "a flower to dream about--hullo! what's that?"

A faint footfall, as of some one passing down an echoing passage, loud, louder, loudest, making me start up, wide awake, as the _fakeer's_ cry rose on the still air: "In the name of your God!"

Some one was passing the bridge from the river, and after adding his mite to the bowl, went on his way.

"It is the echo, _Huzoor_" explained the old man, answering my start of surprise. "The tree behind us is hollow and the cut is deep. Besides, to-night the water runs deep and dark as Death because of the flood. The step is always louder then."

"No wonder you hear so quickly," I replied, sinking back again to my comfort. "I thought it must be the Footstep of Death at least."

He had turned towards me, and in the moonlight I could see those clear eyes of his shining as if the light had come into them again.

"Not yet, _Huzoor!_ But it may be the next one for all we know."

What a gruesome idea! Hark! There it was again; loud, louder, loudest, and then silence.

"That came from the city, _Huzoor_. It comes and goes often, for the law-courts have it in grip. Perhaps that is worse than Death."

"Then you recognise footsteps?"

"Surely. No two men walk the same; a footstep is as a face. Sometimes after long years it comes back, and then you know it has passed before."

"Do they generally come back?"

"Those from the city go back sooner or later unless Death takes them. Those from the wilderness do not always return. The city holds them fast, in the palace or in the gutter."

Again the voice seemed to me not to belong to the still figure beside me. "It makes a devilish noise, I admit," I said, half to myself; "but--"

"Perhaps if the _Huzoor_ listened for Death as I do he might keep awake. Or perhaps if my lord pleases I might tell him a story of footsteps to drive the idle dreams from his brain till the hour of that snorting demon comes in due time?"

"Go ahead," said I briefly, as I looked up at the stars.

So he began. "It's a small story, _Huzoor_. A tale of footsteps from beginning to end, for I am blind. Yet life was not always listening. They used to say that Cheytu had the longest sight, the longest legs, and the longest wind of any boy of his age. I was Cheytu." He paused, and I watched a dancing shadow of a leaf till he went on. "The little princess said Cheytu had the longest tongue too, for I used to sit in the far corner by the pillar beyond her carpet and tell her stories. She used to call for Cheytu all day long. 'Cheytu, smooth the ground for Aimna's feet'--'Cheytu, sweep the dead flowers from Aimna's path'-'Cheytu, fan the flies from Aimna's doll,--for naturally, _Huzoor_, Cheytu the sweeper did not fan the flies from the little princess herself; that was not his work. I belonged to her footsteps. I was up before dawn sweeping the arcades of the old house ready for them, and late at night it was my work to gather the dust of them and the dead flowers she had played with, and bury them away in the garden out of sight."

A dim perception that this was strange talk for a sweeper made me murmur sleepily, "That was very romantic of you, Cheytu." On the other hand, it fitted my environment so admirably that the surprise passed almost as it came.

"She was a real princess, the daughter of kings who had been--God knows when! It is written doubtless somewhere. Yes! a real princess, though she could barely walk, and the track of her little feet was often broken by handmarks in the dust. For naturally, _Huzoor_, the dust might help her, but not I, Cheytu, who swept it for her steps. That was my task till the day of the thunderstorm. The house seemed dead of the heat. Not a breath of life anywhere, so at sundown they set her to sleep on the topmost roof under the open sky. Her nurse, full of frailty as women are, crept down while the child slept, to work evil to mankind as women will. _Huzoor_, it was a bad storm. The red clouds had hung over us all day long, joining the red dust from below so that it came unawares at last, splitting the air and sending a great ladder of light down the roof.

"'Aimna! Aimna!' cried some one. I was up first and had her in my arms; for see you, _Huzoor_, it was life or death, and the dead belong to us whether they be kings or slaves. It was out on the bare steps, and she sleeping sound as children sleep, that the light came. The light of a thousand days in my eyes and on her face. It was the last thing I saw, _Huzoor_--the very last thing Cheytu the sweeper ever saw.

"But I could hear. I could hear her calling, and I knew how her face must be changing by the change in her voice. And then one day I found myself sweeping the house against her wedding-feast; heard her crying amongst her girl friends in the inner room. What then? Girls always cry at their weddings. I went with her, of course, to the new life, because I had swept the way for her ever since she could walk, and she needed me more than ever in a strange house. It was a fine rich house, with marble floors and a marble summer-house on the roof above her rooms. People said she had made a good bargain with her beauty; perhaps, but that child's face that I saw in the light was worth more than money, _Huzoor_. She had ceased crying by this time, for she had plenty to amuse her. Singers and players, and better story-tellers than Cheytu the sweeper. It was but fair, for look you, her man had many more wives to amuse him. I used to hear the rustle of her long silk garments, the tinkle of her ornaments, and the cadence of her laughter. Girls ought to laugh, _Huzoor_, and it was spring time; what we natives call spring, when the rain turns dry sand to grass and the roses race the jasmin for the first blossom. The tree your honour called magnolia grew in the women's court, and some of the branches spread over the marble summerhouse almost hiding it from below. Others again formed a screen against the blank white wall of the next house. The flowers smelt so strong that I wondered how she could bear to sleep amongst them in the summer-house. Even in my place below on the stones of the courtyard they kept me awake. People said I had fever, but it was not that--only the scent of the flowers. I lay awake one dark, starless night, and then I first heard the footstep, if it was a footstep,--loud, louder, loudest; then a silence save for the patter of the falling flowers. I heard it often after that, and always when it had passed the flowers fell. They fell about the summer-house too, and in the morning I used to sweep them into a heap and fling them over the parapet. But one day, _Huzoor_, they fell close at hand, and my groping fingers seeking the cause found a plank placed bridge-wise amongst the branches. _Huzoor!_ was there any wonder the flowers fell all crushed and broken? That night I listened again, and again the footsteps came amid a shower of blossoms. What was to be done? Her women were as women are, and the others were jealous already. Next day when I went to sweep I strewed the fallen flowers thick, thick as a carpet round her bed; for she had quick wits I knew.

"'Cheytu! Cheytu!'

"The old call came as I knew it would, and thinking of that little child's face in the light I went up to her boldly.

"'My princess,' I said in reply to her question as I bent over the flowers, ''tis the footstep makes them fall so thick. If it is your pleasure I will bid it cease. They may hurt your feet.'

"I knew from her silence she understood. Suddenly she laughed; such a girl's laugh.

"'Flowers are soft to tread upon, Cheytu. Go! you need sweep for me no more.'

"I laughed too as I went. Not sweep for her when she only knew God's earth after I had made it ready for her feet! It was a woman's idle word, but, woman-like, she would think and see wisdom for herself.

"That night I listened once more. The footstep must come once I knew--just once, and after that wisdom and safety. _Huzoor!_ it came, and the flowers fell softly. But wisdom was too late. I tried to get at her to save her from their pitiless justice. I heard her cries, for mercy; I heard her cry even for Cheytu the sweeper before they flung me from the steps where the twinkling lights went up and down as if the very stars from the sky had come to spy on her. What did they do to her? What did they do to her while I lay crushed among the crushed flowers? Who knows? It is often done, my lord, behind the walls. She died; that is all I know, that is all I cared for. When I came back to life she was dead, and the footstep had fled from revenge. It had friends over the border where it could pause in safety till the tale was forgotten. Such things are forgotten quickly, my lord, because the revenge must be secret as the wrong; else it is shame, and shame must not come nigh good families. But the blind do not forget easily; perhaps they have less to remember. Could I forget the child's face in the light? As I told the Presence, those who go from the city come back to it sooner or later unless Death takes them first. So I wait for the Footstep--hark!"

Loud--louder--loudest: "In the name of your own God."

* * * * *

Did I wake with the cry? Or did I only open my eyes to see a glimmer of dawn paling the sky, the birds shifting in the branches, the old man seated bolt upright in his penwiper?

"That was the first passenger, _Huzoor_," he said quietly. "The boat has come. It is time your honour conferred dignity on ill manners by joining it."

"But the footstep! the princess! you were telling me just now--"

"What does a sweeper know of princesses, my lord? The Presence slept, and doubtless he dreamed dreams. The tobacco--"

He paused. "Well," said I, curiously.

"_Huzoor!_ this slave steeps his tobacco in the sleep-compeller. It gives great contentment."

I looked down at my pipe. It was but half smoked through. Was this really the explanation?

"But the echo?" I protested. "I heard it but now."

"Of a truth there is an echo. That is not a dream. For the rest it is well. The time has passed swiftly, the _Huzoor_ is rested, his servant has returned, the boat has come--all in contentment. The Shelter of the World can proceed on his journey in peace, and return in peace."

"Unless the Footstep of Death overtakes me meanwhile," said I, but half satisfied.

"_Huzoor!_ It never overtakes the just. Death and the righteous look at each other in the face as friends. When the Footstep comes I will go to meet it, and so will you. Hark! the demon screeches. Peace go with you, my lord."

About a year after this the daily police reports brought me the news that my friend the old _fakeer_ had been found dead in the water-cut. An unusually heavy flood had undermined the banks and loosened the bridge; it must have fallen while the old man was on it, for his body was jammed against the plank which had stuck across the channel a little way down the stream. He had kept his word and gone to meet the Footstep. A certain unsatisfied curiosity, which had never quite left me since that night in the rains, made me accompany the doctor when, as in duty bound, he went to the dead-house to examine the body. The smiling mask was unchanged, but the eyes were open, and looked somehow less empty dead than in the almost terrible clearness of life. The right hand was fast clenched over something.

"Only a crushed magnolia blossom," said the doctor, gently unclasping the dead fingers. "Poor beggar! it must have been floating in the water--there's a tree up the cut; I've often smelt it from the road. Drowning men--you know the rest."

Did I? The coincidence was, to say the least of it, curious. It became more curious still when, three weeks afterwards, the unrecognisable body of a man was found half buried in the silt left in the alluvial basin by the subsiding floods--a man of more than middle age, whose right hand was clenched tight, over nothing.

So the question remains. Did I dream that night, or did the Footstep of Death bring revenge when it came over the bridge at last? I have never been able to decide; and the only thing which remains sure is the figure of the old _fakeer_ with blind eyes, looking out on the uncertain mirage of the river and waiting in godliness and contentment,--for what?

HABITUAL CRIMINALS.

The very _mise-en-scène_ was indeterminate. A straight horizon meeting the blue sky evenly, though not an inch of level ground lay far or near in the pathless waste of yellow sand. Pathless, yet full of tracks. Looking down at your feet, which, breaking through the rippling crust of wind-waves on the surface, sank softly into the warm shifting sand beneath, you could see the tracks crossing and re-crossing each other, tracing a network over the world, each distinct, self-reliant, self-contained. Yet such tiny tracks for the most part! That firm zigzag, regular as a Gothic moulding, is printed by a partridge's foot; yonder fine graving is the track of a jerboa rat; and there, side by side for a space, the striated lines of a big beetle and the endless curvings of a snake. A certain wistful admiration comes to the seeing eye with the thought that, here in the wilderness, life is free to go and come as it chooses, untrammelled by the fetters of custom, free from the necessity for doing as your neighbours do, being as your neighbours are. Something of this was in my thoughts one day when, as I rode at a foot's-pace across the sand-sea to my tents, I suddenly came upon a boy. He must have been ten years old, at least, by his size; any age, judging by his face; stark naked save for a string and a scrap of cloth. His head would have been an admirable advertisement to any hair restorer, for it was thick and curly in patches, bald as a coot's in others; briefly, like a well-kept poodle's. For the rest he was of unusually dark complexion. He was sitting listless, yet alert, beside some small holes in the sand, and when he saw me he smiled broadly, showing a great gleam of white teeth. I asked him cheerfully who he was, and he replied in the same tone,

"_Huzoor! main Bowriah hone_." (I am a Bowriah.) It gave me a chill somehow. So the lad was a Bowriah; in other words, one of that criminal class which Western discipline keeps in walled villages, registered and roll-called by day and by night. Not much freedom there to strike out a line of life for yourself, unless you began before the time when you were solemnly set down in black and write as an adult bad character. The boy, however, seemed to have no misgivings, for he smiled still more broadly when I asked him what he was doing.

"Catching lizards, _Huzoor!_ They are fat at this time."

My chill changed its cause incontinently. "You don't mean to say you eat lizards?"

He looked at me more gravely. "Wherefore not, _Huzoor_? The Bowriahs eat everything, except cats. Cats are heating to the blood, especially in spring time."

His air of well-defined wisdom tickled me; perhaps it touched me also, for, ere riding off, I asked him his name, thinking I might inquire more of him; for the sole reason of my tents being a few miles farther in this sandy wilderness was the due inspection of a Bowriah village which had been planted there, out of harm's way, by the authorities.

"Mungal, _Huzoor_" he replied. So I left him watching for the fat lizards, and cantered on over the desert.

Suddenly I drew rein with a jerk. There he was again in front of me sitting before another group of holes.

"Hullo!" I cried, "how on earth did you manage to get here, Mungal?"

The boy smiled his broad, white smile, "The _Huzoor_ mistakes. I am Bungal. Mungal is my brother over yonder." He stretched a thin dark arm into the desert whence I had come. Mungal and Bungal! Twins, of course! Even so the likeness was almost incredible. My memory could find no dissimilarity of any sort or kind--no outward dissimilarity, at any rate. The thought suggested an experiment, and I asked him what he was.

"_Huzoor! main Bowriah hone_," came instantly.

"And what are you doing?" I continued.

"Catching lizards, _Huzoor!_ They are fat at this time."

Positively my chill returned, making me say quite naturally, "What! do you eat lizards?"

"Wherefore not, _Huzoor_? The Bowriahs eat everything, except cats. Cats are heating to the blood, especially in, spring time."

Identical so far. The quaintness of the idea prevented me from disturbing it by further inquiry, so I rode on, dimly expectant of finding a third habitual criminal--say Jungal this time--watching for fat lizards at other holes. But I did not. They were twins only; Mungal and Bungal. Out of sheer curiosity I sent for them that evening, when I had finished my work of inspecting the adult males and females, listening to their complaints, and generally setting the odd little village on the path of virtue for the next three months. By no means a disagreeable occupation, for the Bowriahs have always a broad smile for a sportsman. Indeed, several of the most suspicious characters had promised me the best of _shikar_ on the morrow; and what is more, they kept their promise faithfully.

As for Mungal and Bungal, even when seen together it was absolutely impossible for me to detect any difference of any kind between the two boys. Even their heads were shaven in the same tufts, and as they invariably repeated each other, there was no differentiating them by their words.

Only their works remained as a means of knowledge, and with a view to this I questioned the Deputy Inspector of Police, who was out with me, as to the lads.

"_Huzoor!_" he said, "they are of the Bowriah race. Their father and mother are dead, but in life these were Bowriahs also. The boys, however, not being adult, are not as yet on the Register; but they will be. For the rest they are as Bowriahs. They eat jackals, wolves, and such unclean things."

I felt myself on the point of adding, "But not cats--cats, etc.;" however I stopped myself in time, and asked instead if the boys stole, or lied, or--

The Deputy Inspector interrupted me respectfully, yet firmly. "_Huzoor!_ not being adult they are not on the Register. Therefore the police have no cognizance of them--as yet."

"Then why do they make for the village now they hear the roll beginning?" I persisted somewhat testily, as I saw Mungal and Bungal racing along to the gateway in company with a number of boys about their own age.

"They do it to please themselves. It gives them dignity. Besides, in youth one learns habits easily. Thus it is better, since the boys will surely be on the Register if God spares them to adult age."

I looked at the man sharply; there was positively not one atom of expression of any kind whatever on his face. It is a great art.

On the morrow Mungal and Bungal turned up again as part of the shooting excursion, for even among their tribe of hunters they had already made themselves a sporting reputation; perhaps because, being orphans, they lived chiefly on their wits. It certainly was remarkable to see them on a trail, turning and twisting and doubling on traces invisible to my eyes; or sometimes, like a couple of Bassett-hound puppies, on all fours, nose down, creeping round some higher undulation to see what lay behind it. We had stalked a ravine deer which another party of Bowriahs had stealthily driven--all unconsciously--into a suitable spot, and I was just crawling on my stomach to the shelter of a low bush whence I intended to fire, when a small dark hand clutched mine from behind, and another pointed to something within an inch of where I had been about to place my fingers. By everything unpleasant! a viper coiled in a true lover's knot! "T--Tss-ss," came a sibilant whisper checking my start; "the buck is there, _Huzoor_; the buck is there still."

And he remained there, for my bullet went clean through his heart. It was after the excitement of success was over that I turned to the boys, and, somewhat thoughtlessly, held out a rupee.

"Which of you two pointed out that _jelaibee?_" I asked.

"_Huzoor!_ I did," came both voices simultaneously. At first they refused to budge from this simple statement, reserving the remainder of their vocabulary for indignant abuse of each other. Nor could I from their expression or tone glean the slightest corroborative evidence for or against the truth of either. The greed in their beady black eyes, their scorn at the dastardly attempt at cheating them out of their due were identical. Finally, to my intense bewilderment they suddenly, without even a wink that I could see, made a _demi-volte_ towards a new position, and declared in one breath that they both did it, and therefore that they both deserved a rupee. Certainly there had been two hands, the one to clutch, the other to point, but I felt morally certain that they had belonged to one body. However, to settle the matter I gave each of the boys eight annas, and went back to my tents convinced that either Mungal or Bungal was a liar. The question was--which?

That evening, when I was awaiting the appearance of my dinner with the comfortable sense of a good appetite, I heard trouble in the cook-room tent. It was followed by the violent irruption into mine of the whole posse of servants gathered round my old _khânsâman_ who, breathless but triumphant, held Mungal and Bungal each by one ear.

"It was the _esh-starffit_[25] quails, _Huzoor_, that I had prepared for the Protector of the Poor; two for his Honour, seeing that he loves the dish, and one for _Barker sahib_,[26] should God send a guest, so that the dignity of the table be upheld even in the wilderness. And, lo! as I sat decorating the dish, my mind occupied in desires to please, I saw him--the infamous Bowriah boy--make off with one. Aged as I am I fled after him, then remembering boys' ways, ran back round the tent in time to see him, from fear, replacing it. Finally, with hue and cry, we caught both escaping into the darkness of the desert."

"Both of them!" I echoed; "but you said there was only one."

"The _Huzoor_ mistakes," retorted the _khânsâman_ quite huffily. "Perchance there was one who stole, and one who gave back. This slave had no time for trivial observation, these being undoubtedly the thieves." He emphasised his words by dragging Mungal and Bungal forward by the ears, and knocking their heads together; his following meanwhile testifying its assent by undertoned remarks, that being Bowriahs the boys were necessarily thieves, and that in addition it was superfluous, if not impious, to draw invidious distinctions where it had pleased Providence to make none.

But my curiosity had been aroused. "Mungal and Bungal," I said solemnly, addressing the culprits who, with hands folded in front of them like infant Samuels, stood cheerfully stolid, just as the adult members of their tribe invariably did when brought before me as habitual criminals, "do you by chance know what telling the truth means?"

As they assured me fervently that they did, I went on to explain that my only desire in this case was to have the truth; that no one should suffer by it; that contrariwise the tellers should receive _bucksheesh_. Here their beady eyes wandered in confident familiarity to the rotund person of the Deputy Inspector, who had rushed to the scene in mufti on hearing of the crime, and I knew instinctively that they were discounting my words by inherited experience of similar promises. So it was with a prescience of what would follow that I put the least formidable question--

"Which of you replaced the quail?"

The answer came double-barrelled, unhesitating, "I did, _Huzoor_."

"Let me give the boys five stripes each with the bamboo, _Huzoor!_" suggested the Deputy Inspector with a stifled yawn, when I had wasted much time and more unction, "it is good for boys at all times, and these are but boys--as yet."

It would have been the wisest plan, but I could not make up my mind to it, so I went to bed that night certain of but one thing--either Mungal or Bungal was a thief. The question was--which?

It kept me awake until I made up my mind that somehow, by hook or by crook, I would find out. Twenty-four hours was after all too short a time for a character study; but I was to be on tour for six weeks at least, and if I took the boys with me I should have ample opportunity of settling the question. Besides, they would be invaluable as trackers.

They proved themselves useful in many ways, and even the old khânsâman grudgingly admitted their skill in the capture of chickens. The spectacle of a half-plucked fowl defying all the resources of the camp became a thing of the past, for Mungal or Bungal had it fast by the leg in a trice.

"_Sobhan ullah!_" (Power of the Lord) the old man would say piously. "But there! they were made for such work from the beginning. We all have our uses."

My first desire was naturally to distinguish Mungal from Bungal. The camp, it is true, had no such ambition. It was content to speak of them as "_Yeh_" or "_Dusra_" (This or the Other), to which they answered alternately. Thinking to effect my purpose, I gave one a necklace of blue, the other a necklace of red beads; but they were evidently suspicious of some plot, for I caught them exchanging decorations several times. Evidently no reliance was to be placed on beads, so I had a brass bangle riveted on the arm of one, and an iron bangle on the arm of the other. That succeeded for a week. At least so I thought, till I discovered that they had utilised my English files to cut through the metal so that they could slip their flexible hands in and out quite easily. Then I became annoyed, and pierced the ears of one boy. Next day the other had his pierced also. So I got the two alone by themselves, and asked them why they objected to the manifest convenience of individuality. It took me some time to worm the idea out of their small brains, but when I did, it touched me. Briefly, no one had ever made a difference between them before, not even the mysterious Creator, and in the village no one had cared. Personally, they never thought if Mungal was really Mungal, or Bungal. It was a joint-stock company doing business under the name of Mungal-Bungal. As they said this they stood, as usual when before me, in the attitude of the praying Samuel, but I noticed their shoulders seemed glued to each other, and that the whole balance of their lithe brown bodies was towards each other. In truth the tie between them was strong indeed. By day they and my big dog hunted together, and by night the trio slept in each other's arms like puppies of one litter. When they pilfered, they pilfered in pairs, and when they lied, they lied in pairs; still, through it all, the idea clung to me that perhaps only one lied and stole. But punishment of some sort being imperative, I gave in to the impartial bamboo--for which, to say sooth, neither of them seemed to care very much.

In fact, the experiment appeared so successful, the boys so happy, that the demon of self-complacency entered into me on my return to headquarters, and I determined to send Mungal and Bungal to school, and so differentiate them by their intellects. It was a disastrous experiment, both to the clothes in which I had to dress them, and to the peace of the compound; but it proved one thing, that neither Mungal nor Bungal had any aptitude for learning the alphabet. Then, as the recognised way of reclaiming the predatory tribes is to make them tillers of the soil, I set my boys to work weeding in the garden. It was a large garden, full of blossoming shrubs and shady fruiting trees, where the squirrels loved to chatter, the birds to sing, and I to watch them both. Within a fortnight neither fur nor feather was to be seen anywhere. On the other hand, Mungal, Bungal, and Co. had killed five cobras, two iguanas, and some dozens of cockroaches, rats, and mice--all of which they had eaten. It was when, failing other game, a pet parrot of the _khânsâman's_ house disappeared, that I solemnly thrashed both boys myself, after giving them a moral lecture on cruelty to animals. The next morning the bird's cage contained a new and most highly-educated parrot,--which must have been stolen from some one,-- and when I went out into the verandah, I found a whole family of young squirrels, and two bul-buls with their wings cut, dotted about the flower stands. One of the culprits was evidently bent on restitution and amendment. Perhaps both; that was the worst of it. One never could tell; for in speech they both clung to virtue and disclaimed vice. My Commissioner's wife, who lived next door, and was a very philanthropic woman, told me she thought they needed female influence to soften and subdue their wild nature; so they used to be sent over to her twice a week. She found them quite affable, until the _khitmutghâr_ accused one of them of sampling the lunch which had been set down on the verandah steps on its way to the cook-room. Then, instead of beating them, she locked them up without food for twenty-four hours, and begged me to continue the like discipline whenever the offence was repeated. Hunger, she said, had a gentle and humanising influence on all wild animals, who might thus be brought to eat from the hand of authority. So it seemed; for one night the lady's pet Persian kitten disappeared mysteriously from her room. I tried to persuade myself it could not be the boys, because "cat is heating to the blood," etc., etc.; but I knew they had been hungry, and that game was scarce in both gardens. And, sure enough, the police in searching their hut found some gnawed bones, poor pussy's white skin neatly stretched on a board to dry, and, of course, both the boys. They always were found together. This time they attempted excuse, the one for the other. Mungal or Bungal had been hungry; must have been hungry, or he would not have eaten cat, seeing that cat, etc., etc. So they were sentenced judicially to so many stripes apiece, and I resolved on sending them back to the walled village as incurable.

"It is a good word, indeed," said the old _khânsâman_ pompously. "Thus the _Huzoor's_ compound will be free from all kinds of vermin; for, as I live, the boy hath killed a snake in his Honour's henhouse every night, save the last; and that, methinks, is because there are no more to kill."

"The boy? which boy?" I asked, suddenly curious. Then it came out that every one in the place knew that either "Yeh" or "Dusra" had been locked up in the hen-house from dusk till dawn every night for a week or more, because some vermin was carrying off the chickens. Locked up from daylight to daylight! without a possibility of cat_icide_. The fact revived all my old curiosity, all my old determination to differentiate these boys. I shall not easily forget the Deputy Inspector's face of incredulous horror when I told him that Mungal-Bungal was to remain for another trial. Even the Commissioner's wife told me she thought it conceited on my part, seeing that female influence had failed so signally.

And, as a matter of fact, I gained nothing in the end by my perseverance.

The nights were growing warm, so I slept with the doors open; secure, however, so I deemed, from fear of any kind by reason of the mastiff which was chained in the verandah,--a most ferocious beast to all save his friends. They were moonless nights, too, dark as pitch in the central room, where I slept in order to enjoy the full current of air. Hopelessly dark for the eyes as I woke one night to the touch of a small flexible hand on mine.

"Hullo! who are you?" I cried in the half-drowsy alertness which comes with a sudden decisive awakening.

"_Huzoor, main Bowriah hone_."

I seem to hear the answer as I write--confident, contented, cheerful. And then my attention shifted absolutely to a streak of light glimmering under the closed door of my office. Thieves! thieves in the house! I was among them in an instant, getting a glimpse of dark figures at my cash box before the light was put out. One oily body slipped from my hold, another fled past me. But my shouts had roused the sleeping servants, and, as the cressets came flickering up like stars from the huts, I heard the well-known cry, "_Bowriah logue! Bowriah logue_." And then, of course, in the centre of the posse of indignant retainers I saw Mungal-Bungal led by the ears, caught in the very act of running away in the rear of those adult members of their tribe whose accomplices they had been; for the mastiff was dead--brutally, skilfully strangled by some fiend of a friend whom the poor dog had trusted to slip a noose round its neck.

One of those two, of course; who else could it have been?

But then that small warning hand on mine! That answer I knew so well:--

"_Huzoor! main Bowriah hone_."

Great God! what a tragedy lay in these words!

I was too sick at heart to question those infant Samuels again; I knew the double-barrelled denial too well. However, as I had been roused in time to prevent actual theft, I managed to hush the matter up by promising the Deputy Inspector to send the boys back to their village without further delay, there to await due registration as adult male members of a predatory tribe, and thus gain the privilege of being within the cognizance of the police. I think my decision gave satisfaction to every one concerned, except myself, for as I watched Mungal-Bungal go from my gate in charge of the constable who was to conduct it back to the hereditary place in life to which it had, apparently, pleased God to call the firm, I knew that if one-half was already a habitual criminal, the other half was an embryo saint.

The question remains--which?

MUSSUMÂT KIRPO'S DOLL.

They had gathered all the schools into the Mission House compound, and set them out in companies on the bare ground like seedlings in a bed,--a perfect garden of girls, from five to fifteen, arrayed in rainbow hues; some of them in their wedding dresses of scarlet, most of them bedecked with the family jewelry, and even the shabbiest boasting a row or two of tinsel on bodice or veil.

And down the walks, drawn with mathematical accuracy between these hotbeds of learning, a few English ladies with eager, kindly faces, trotting up and down, conferring excitedly with portly native Christian Bible-women, and pausing occasionally to encourage some young offshoot of the Tree of Knowledge--uncertain either of its own roots or of the soil it grew in--by directing its attention to the tables set out with toys which stood under a group of date-palms and oranges. Behind these tables sat in a semicircle more of those eager, kindly foreign faces, not confined here to one sex, but in fair proportion male and female; yet, bearded like the pard or feminine to a fault, all with the same expression, the same universal kindly benevolence towards the horticultural exhibition spread out before their eyes.

At the table, pale or flushed with sheer good feeling, two or three of the chief Mission ladies, and between them, with a mundane, married look about her, contrasting strongly with her surroundings, the Commissioner's wife, about to give away the prizes. A kindly face also, despite its half-bewildered look, as one after another of the seedlings comes up to receive the reward of merit. One after another solemnly, for dotted here and there behind the screen of walls and bushes squats many a critical mother, determined that her particular plant shall receive its fair share of watering, or cease to be part of the harvest necessary for a good report. The Commissioner's wife has half-a-dozen children of her own, and prides herself on understanding them; but these bairns are a race apart. She neither comprehends them, nor the fluent, scholastic Hindustani with which her flushed, excited countrywomen introduce each claimant to her notice. Still she smiles, and says, "_Bohut uchcha_" (very good), and nods as if she did. In a vague way she is relieved when the books are finished and she begins upon the dolls. There is something familiar and cosmopolitan in the gloating desire of the large dark eyes, and the possessive clutch of the small hands over the treasure.

"Standard I. Mussumât[27] Kirpo," reads out the secretary, and a tall girl of about fifteen comes forward. A sort of annoyed surprise passes among the ladies in quick whispers. Clearly, a Japanese baby-doll with a large bald head is not the correct thing here; but it is so difficult, so almost impossible with hundreds of girls who attend school so irregularly, and really Julia Smith might have explained! This the lady in question proceeds to do almost tearfully, until she is cut short by superior decision.

"Well, we must give it her now as there isn't anything else for her. So, dear Mrs. Gordon, if you please! Of course, as a rule, we always draw the line about dolls when a girl is married. Sometimes it seems a little hard, for they are so small, you know; still it is best to have a rule; all these tiny trifles help to emphasise our views on the child-marriage question. But if you will be kind enough in this case--just to avoid confusion--we will rectify the mistake to-morrow."

Mussumât Kirpo took her doll stolidly;--a sickly, stupid-looking girl, limping as she walked dully, stolidly back to her place.

"_Ari!_" giggled the women behind the bushes. "That's all she is likely to get in that way. Lo! they made a bad bargain in brides in Gungo's house, and no mistake. But 'twas ill luck, not ill management; for they tell me Kirpo was straight and sound when she was betrothed. May the gods keep my daughters-in-law healthy and handsome."

Then they forgot the joke in tender delight over more suitable gifts to the others; and so the great day passed to its ending.

"I do believe poor Kirpo's getting that doll was the only _contretemps_," said the superintendent triumphantly, "and that, dear Julia, you can easily remedy to-morrow, so don't fret about it."

With this intention Julia Smith went down at the first opportunity to her school in the slums of the city. A general air of slackness pervaded the upstairs room, where only a row of little mites sat whispering to each other, while their mistress, full of yawns and stretchings, talked over the events of yesterday with her monitor. Briefly, if the Miss-_sahib_ thought she was going to slave as she had done for the past year for a paltry eight yards of _sussi_-trousering, which would not be enough to cut into the "fassen "--why, the Miss-_sahib_ was mistaken. And then with the well-known footfall on the stairs came smiles and flattery. But Kirpo was not at school. Why should she be, seeing that she was a paper-pupil and the prize giving was over? If the Miss-_sahib_ wanted to see her, she had better go round to Gungo's house in the heart of the Hindu quarter. So Julia Smith set off again to thread her way through the byeways, till she reached the mud steps and closed door which belonged to Kuniya, the head-man of the comb-makers. This ownership had much to do with the English lady's patience in regard to Kirpo who, to tell truth, had been learning the alphabet for five years. But the girl's father-in-law was a man of influence, and Julia's gentle, proselytising eyes cast glances of longing on every house where she had not as yet found entrance. Hence her reluctance to quarrel definitely with her pupil, or rather her pupil's belongings, since poor Kirpo did not count for much in that bustling Hindu household. But for the fact that she was useful at the trade and as a general drudge, _Mai_ Gungo would long ago have found some excuse for sending the girl, who had so wofully disappointed all expectations, back to her people,--those people who had taken the wedding gifts and given a half-crippled, half-silly bride in exchange. Unparalleled effrontery and wickedness, to be avenged on the only head within reach.

"She wants none of your dolls or your books," shrilled _Mai_ Gungo, who was in a bad temper; "they aren't worth anything, and I expected nothing less than a suit of clothes, or a new veil at least, else would I never have sent her from the comb-making to waste her time. Lo! Miss-_sahib_," here the voice changed to a whine, "we are poor folk, and she costs to feed--she who will never do her duty as a wife. Yet must not Kuniya's son remain sonless; thus is there the expense of another wife in the future."

So the complaints went on, while Kirpo, in full hearing, sat filing away at the combs without a flicker of expression on her face.

But when Julia had settled the business with eight annas from her private pocket, and was once more picking her way through the drain-like alley, she heard limping steps behind her. It was Kirpo and the Japanese doll.

"The Miss-_sahib_ has forgotten it," she said stolidly. Julia Smith stood in the sunlight, utterly unmindful of a turgid stream of concentrated filth which at that moment came sweeping along the gutter. Her gentle, womanly eyes saw something she recognised in the child-like, yet unchild-like face looking into hers.

"Would you like to keep it, dear?" she asked gently. Kirpo nodded her head.

"She needn't know," she explained. "I could keep it in the cow-shed, and they will sell the book you left for me. They would sell this too. That is why I brought it back."

This admixture of cunning rather dashed poor Julia's pity; but in the end Kirpo went back to her work with the Japanese doll carefully concealed in her veil, and for the next year Julia Smith never caught sight of it again. Things went on as if it had not been in that straggling Hindu house, with its big courtyard and dark slips of rooms. Perhaps Kirpo got up at night to play with it; perhaps she never played with it at all, but, having wrapped it in a napkin and buried it away somewhere, was content in its possession like the man with his one talent; for this miserliness belongs, as a rule, to those who have few things, not many. Once or twice, when Julia Smith found the opportunity, she would ask after the doll's welfare. Then Kirpo would nod her head mysteriously; but this was not often, for, by degrees, Julia's visits to the house and Kirpo's to the schools became less frequent. The former, because _Mai_ Gungo's claims grew intolerable, and the Mission lady had found firm footing in less rapacious houses. The latter, because to _Mai_ Gungo's somewhat grudging relief her daughter-in-law, after nearly four years of married life, seemed disposed to save the family from the expense of another bride by presenting it with a child. Nothing, of course, could alter the fact of the girl's ugliness and stupidity and lameness; still, if she did her duty in this one point _Mai_ Gungo could put up with her, especially as she really did very well at the combs. She was not worked quite so hard now, since that might affect the future promise. Perhaps this gave Kirpo more time to play with the Japanese doll, perhaps it did not. Outwardly, at any rate, life went on in the courtyard as though no such thing existed.

"She may die, the crippled ones often do," said the gossips, scarcely lowering their voices; "but it will be a great saving, _Mai_ Gungo, if the grandson comes without another daughter-in-law; they quarrel so. Besides, it is in God's hands. May He preserve both to you." _Mai_ Gungo echoed the wish, with the reservation that if the whole wish was impossible, the child at least might not suffer. Kirpo herself understood the position perfectly, and felt dimly that if she could do her duty she would be quite content to give up the comb-making once and for all. It was niggly, cramping work to sit with your crippled legs tucked under you, filing away at the hard wood all day long, while mother-in-law bustled about, scolding away in her shrill voice. It had been much greater fun at the school; and as for the prize-giving days! Kirpo had four of those red-letter glimpses of the world to recollect, but she always gave the palm of pleasure to the last, when they had laughed at her and the Japanese doll. Perhaps because she remembered it best; for, as has been said, poor Kirpo's was not a brilliant intellect.

So just about the time when the Mission House was once more buying large consignments of dolls and books, and laying in yards on yards of _sussi_-trousering and Manchester veiling against another prize-giving, the mistress of the little school-room up two pair of stairs said to Julia Smith,

"Kirpo had a son last week. _Mai_ Gungo hath given offerings galore."

"And Kirpo herself?"

"She ails, they say; but that is likely. The hour of danger is over."

That same afternoon Julia Smith once more picked her way along the gutters to the mud steps and closed door of Kuniya's house. Kirpo was lying alone on a bed in the shadow of a grass thatch.

"And where is the baby?" asked Julia, cheerfully.

"Mother-in-law hath it. 'Tis a son--doubtless the Miss hath heard so." There was the oddest mixture of pride and regret in the girl's dull face.

"She will let thee have it when thou art stronger," said her visitor quickly. "Thou must give me back the dolly, Kirpo, now thou hast a live one of thine own."

The girl's head shifted uneasily on the hard pillow.

"Ay! and the prize-giving day must be close, I have been thinking. If the Miss-_sahib_ will look behind the straw yonder she will find the doll. It is not hurt. And the Miss can give it to some one else. I don't want it any more. She might give it to a little girl this time. She could play with it."

"_Mai_ Gungo!" said Julia severely, as, on her way out, she found the mother-in-law surrounded by her gossips, exhibiting the baby to them with great pride, "you must look to Kirpo; she thrives not. And give her the baby--she pines after it."

"The Miss doth not understand," flounced Gungo. "What can Kirpo do with a baby? She is a fool; besides, a mother like that hath evil influences till the time of purification hath passed."

Ten days afterwards the mistress of the school told Julia that Kirpo had the fever, and they did not think she would recover. It was never safe for such as she to have sons, and nothing else was to be expected.

Perhaps it was not; for Julia found her on the bare ground of the courtyard where she had been set to die. The oil lamps flared smokily at her head and her feet, and _Mai_ Gungo, with the fortnight-old baby in her arms, cried "_Râm! Râm!_" lustily. But the girl lingered in life, turning her head restlessly from side to side on Mother Earth's bosom.